300 words

This is more like 400 words... apparently I can really spit it out when it's about me, my insecurities and lack of confidence. How frustrating for everyone. For a refresher on what I'm talking about, thesis-structure-wise, check out this post.

I've been feeling pretty out of sorts this past while and I want things to change. Or is it more active for me to say, I want to change...? Because I do...

Other thoughts: I go back and forth in my mind and in conversations with people about the role of scent in my thesis. Another thing that comes up now and then when I think about it is design... it's not that I think this should be a "DESIGN" thesis but I feel that there's something missing. Could that thing be design? I don't even know what I'm talking about. In any case, it is kind of nice to be posting again. Here are we go.


300 words on the danger of my thesis stand, July 21st, 2009- eclipse!

I think I’ve already complained that I’ve been seeing everything in nothing these days- how I’m concerned that this whole thesis endeavour has been smoke and mirrors of my own doing... (undoing, desire, delusion?) The danger of seeing everything in nothing is that it inevitably turns to the worry or realisation that perhaps there is nothing to see when looking at everything. Is it possible to see the void that connects matter without addressing the matter at hand? (Where is the substance? Is this like a figure ground thing? Can everything be made architectural-sounding? Why am I resistant to this?)

Or is the danger actually that I hope to look at ‘everything’ (or at least a lot- a diverse lot) but say nothing? If I were to present a book with no thesis- that is, a thesis book with no overarching statement or intent, would it still be a thesis? I imagine a book of short essays- writing on topics loosely filed under the physical constraints of curiosity cabinet, garden, and places of worship.

Perhaps the real danger of my thesis resides in its passivity- not only my listlessness in doing (trying to do) it, but the emptiness of a thesis without an explicit statement; will there be anything to grasp or hold onto? (defend?) Is there magic in a cabinet waiting to be filled, a plot of soil to be seeded, a wonderful place with no inhabitants? Even when these spaces are filled and subsequently described, it will still be up to the viewer to overcome the inertia of only seeing in order to be touched. Does the premise of my thesis rely too much on the reader to make sense of it, to see the point of it?

Sure, a book in itself is a passive object, waiting for someone to open its covers and give its existence purpose. But what to make of a book that only kind of shows (hopefully revealing something unknown/unacknowledged?) but remains largely mute? Is it too much to ask the reader to feel, think, remember, and look beyond the words to make/find their own meaning in the work? Because as the creator of this work I’m already confused before I’ve really begun. I feel too lost to begin. While it’s not necessarily dangerous (and perhaps even good sometimes) for a reader to be confused, it’s dangerous if it leads to boredom. (indifference, paralysis.)